All the characters below are from the creative genius of JE.

Jenny (JenRar) thank you for your work as the beta on this story. I feel badly that you give up so much time to work on my chapters, but I'm certainly grateful that you do it.

Chapter 11 - Fighting

I had come upstairs in the middle of the day to change out of my suit from meeting with clients and into my uniform to be more comfortable. I was lacing up my boots, when I heard the outside door open, and then slam shut. It didn't take a genius to know that sound didn't bode well.

I hurried through the knot I was tying and stepped out in time to see Stephanie slam her purse down on the couch, and then stomp to the kitchen and nearly yank the refrigerator door off the hinge as she grabbed a bottle of water.

She turned her head in my direction, and I expected to see some hint of what had her upset; perhaps a run in with someone from the 'Burg or an insensitive stranger had hooked her anger. But instead, her eyes narrowed at me, and I instinctively took a step back. I was never one to run from a fight if that's what was called for, but no one would accuse me of charging in where angels feared to tread unnecessarily, either.

I waited to see if she would break the tension, but this time, she seemed to be comfortable in the silence. It figured the one time I truly wished she would speak to let me know what had her so upset was the one time she didn't care to talk.

For the first time in my life, I caved while waiting someone out and spoke first. "Babe?" Hopefully, it wouldn't count against me, since I'd technically only said her name. That could mean almost anything.

Her eyes tightened down more, and she screwed the lid on her water and set it on the counter hard enough to bend the bottom of the plastic bottle. Then it hit me. Stephanie was pissed, and she was pissed at me, not at some situation she'd encountered. If it weren't for the fact that I'd never had her anger turned in my direction, I might have found it humorous.

"What's wrong?" I asked, feeling the need to clear the air of whatever had fallen between us. In the five minutes we'd been in the kitchen together, the distance between us had grown and was making me feel off center in a way I didn't like.

Stephanie took a deep breath and looked away, like she was trying to calm down. Her eyes closed, and she rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead, like she was trying to press a headache away. Her lips opened to let out a breath, and then she began mumbling. Normally, I tried not to listen in when she did this, because I knew she wasn't aware of the fact that she was talking out loud. But there was a time when I'd warned her that I was an opportunist, and right now, I needed a clue or two in order to plan out my next move.

She was too quiet for me to pick up much, until she jerked her head up and said, "I can't do this. I have to get out of here." Then she took off toward the couch to pick up her purse, and I knew she was about to run. She was angry at me and was going to walk out of here with nowhere to go just to avoid the conflict and stick her head in the sand.

I knew that was her standard response, and when she was mad at Joe or her mother, I never had a problem with it. But we'd said that there would be no pushing each other away and no running when we'd first gotten together, and the idea that she was planning on leaving me to stew on what in the hell was wrong hooked my temper, so I ran past her and blocked the door, my feet apart and my arms crossed over my chest.

Stephanie stopped walking when she took in my stance and rolled her eyes. "Ranger, move out of my way."

I let my blank face fall into place instinctually when I heard her use my street name instead of Carlos, as she had finally begun to call me.

My lack of response wasn't lost on her, and she pointed a finger in the direction of my face and said, "Oh no, you don't get to pull that damned blank face on me and stand there completely silent. Get out of my way."

"No," I said as calmly as possible, before realizing it didn't matter if I tempered my tone or not. She couldn't make out the difference, so I didn't need to waste the energy on it.

She crossed her arms and raised her voice. "You can't force me to stay here."

I raised an eyebrow in challenge to her statement. "You aren't leaving until you tell me why you're upset."

"I'm not telling you anything," she replied harshly.

"Then it looks like you're stuck," I raised my voice in return.

She lifted her hands, as though my response was ridiculous. "Fine!" I hoped that meant she was going to talk, but instead, she turned away from me and spoke as she walked back to the kitchen. "You can make me stay, but you can't make me talk."

I'd heard something similar from many men over the years, and every one of them had broken and talked when I wanted them to. But I didn't think my methods would work in this situation, because there was no way in hell I was going to hurt Stephanie like that.

I stretched my neck to the side, until I heard a satisfying crack, and decided if I couldn't force the truth from her, maybe I could finesse it out. There were many forms of intimidation, and they didn't all have to include pain to be effective.

I walked up behind her as she stood in the kitchen, facing the sink and staring straight ahead at nothing. I didn't want to frighten her, so I was trying to figure out how to approach her, when she spoke up.

"I know you're standing there, and you can just turn around and go downstairs, because you aren't changing my mind about this."

I moved to lean against the kitchen cabinet to face her, but still she wouldn't look at me. Stephanie had never shut me out before, and if she didn't look at me, there was no way for me to communicate with her. She had the upper hand in this situation.

I touched her cheek lightly with the back of my index finger, hoping she would turn to me, but instead, she moved her head and looked farther away. I'm sure there were several options that might have been effective here, but when she turned her head, it had the same effect on me as her pushing me away – I got mad and no longer saw the reason to temper it to spare her feelings. Obviously, she didn't feel the need to protect mine, so why was I holding back?

I grabbed her shoulders and spun her around to stand in front of me, before cupping her cheeks softly between my hands. Her shock at my actions lowered her guard just long enough that she looked at me, and I started talking immediately before she realized I'd tricked her with the element of surprise.

"I take it I've done something to piss you off, and since I want to be sure we never have to repeat this kind of thing again, I need you to tell me what it was. I promised you I wouldn't let you run, and you promised you wouldn't let me hide from you, so we owe it to ourselves to keep our word to each other." I felt her shoulders relax as I spoke, but that was the only sign my words were having a thawing effect on her temper. "Tell me what's wrong…please."

She rolled her eyes when I added the please, but I knew she would talk, so I let her step back to get away from my grasp. "You've been having me followed." She stated it as fact, not question, so I knew someone had admitted to it, taking away my ability to deny it.

"Only since the run in with Joyce in the mall," I said, both confirming what she'd said as true and trying to add my defense in at the same time.

"Arghh!" Her hands went to her hips, and I knew this was about to get loud. "That isn't an excuse. I told you I needed to get out and do things on my own so that I could get some sense of control in my life."

"And you've done that," I countered, refusing to believe that having her shadowed took away her control.

"No, I haven't. I've been going around with this false sense of security that I was still an independent woman and my lack of hearing had made no difference, but it isn't true," she argued, one hand moving around in the air, as though it were making her point stronger in some way.

"Your lack of hearing makes no difference in your independence," I reminded her.

"Bullshit!" Obviously, we didn't agree on that point. "If that were true, you wouldn't have felt the need to have someone follow me around secretly, now would you?"

She had me there, but I had no intention of admitting it. "They weren't assigned to take care of you. They weren't driving you around or helping you out. They were only there if there was a repeat of your experience at the mall."

"It's the fact that they were there at all," she stated, as though it should make sense to me. "For the last week when I've gone out, I've had this strange feeling I was being watched. I was getting paranoid and looking over my shoulder, convinced I was losing my mind and that the loss of my hearing had made my spidey sense screwy somehow."

"You should always trust your instincts," I said out of habit, knowing that listening to that nagging voice in my head had saved me time and time again on missions.

"And in the past, I have, but because you've had guys following me around, spying on me, I couldn't see them, and after checking a dozen times and not seeing anyone, I began to doubt my instincts and doubt myself. What was supposed to be practice in building my confidence turned out to be an exercise in taking it away," she pointed out, making me doubt for the first time that I'd done the right thing.

I didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of doubting my choice, so I changed the subject. "How did you know they were there?" I asked, genuinely curious who had let the cat out of the bag.

"Monday, I was sitting on a swing at the park for about half an hour, trying to figure out if it was practical for me to ever try working for Vinnie again, and Hal came over and pushed me. It was nice, and he said he'd been passing by and had seen the Porsche, so he'd taken a chance that it was me."

At least he'd tried to cover up why he was there. It would be easy to turn on Hal and yell at him for approaching her, since he was supposed to stay hidden, but I would have done the same thing if she'd stayed in one open place like that for too long.

"Then Tuesday, I went back to my apartment to go through the stuff that had been buried under the rubble in my closet since Dillon left that message that he'd cleared away the debris. I'd been there about an hour, when Cal showed up with meatball subs for lunch. I asked him how he knew I was there, and he said he called the control room and asked for them to pull up my tracker, claiming to have had a craving for a sub and playing it off as though no one else liked them as much as the two of us did."

Cal was right on that front. He was the only man on my staff that had a permanent weak spot for greasy Italian junk food and didn't mind working out for an extra half hour to burn off the effects of his addiction. I knew he tried to hide it, but the number of times I'd seen pizza sauce on the keyboard in the control room coinciding with his assigned shifts were too many to be overlooked.

"Wednesday, I was in the mall and took a break to have a smoothie from the stand at the food court. I'd finished my shopping, and my bags were on the ground around my feet. I wasn't really looking forward to carrying them to the parking lot, because I'd had to park so far away from the door. Before I could find enough motivation to stand up and get moving, Woody appeared, claiming to be there to pick up something for his sister's birthday and wondered if I needed help carrying the bags to the car. I took him up on it, but couldn't help but wonder where his bag was, if he was there shopping, too."

I needed to work on developing a cover story with the guys, if these were the best lame excuses they could come up with to drop by and help her.

"And then today was the one I couldn't ignore. I went to the Tasty Pastry and got a few doughnuts for the girls, but on my way out, some kid was riding his bicycle down the sidewalk at a breakneck speed. I didn't hear him coming, so when he passed in front of me, we were so close, the box was knocked out of my hands and fell to the ground. I hadn't even knelt down far enough to pick it up, before Vince magically appeared and asked if I was all right."

"Are you okay?" I asked her, never considering that she might be in danger from stupid bicycling teenagers too self absorbed to look out for her on the sidewalk.

"I'm fine, and that is totally not the point," she answered, her irritation growing once more. "The point is that when he showed up, I asked him how he knew to be there, and he said he was just passing by and saw my car, but there is no way that's true."

Damn, that meant he hadn't actually told her the truth and I'd admitted to this when I didn't necessarily have to. Well, except that not telling her something was one thing, but I'd never blatantly lied to her before, and I didn't want to start now that I was pushing her to trust me.

"So, after all these coincidental visits by guys from RangeMan, you put the clues together and realized that I'd had someone tailing you anytime you left the building," I summed up for her.

"No... I wondered if that was what was happening, but it just didn't seem possible that you would do something like that behind my back. When I got here, I went to your office, but you weren't there, so I went next door and asked Tank who my shadow for tomorrow was, because I was going to spend the morning with Grandma Mazur."

Already, I knew that I needed to get a good night's rest, because calling Tank to the mats for this was going to take all my strength to pull off. "What did he say?"

"He grimaced," she told me, "and then admitted that it was him."

"I knew if I told you that I was assigning someone to you that you'd try to lose them, so I had Tank set up a rotating shadow roster so that someone was watching your back anytime you left." I figured confessing to her was probably a good first step.

"Did it not cross your mind that if you knew I'd get upset about it, you probably shouldn't have done it?" She was back to screeching, which wasn't the response I'd been hoping for.

"What crossed my mind was that my woman had been hurt because some insensitive bitch wouldn't leave her alone, and no one should have to put up with that kind of harassment. I refused to ask you to limit your outings into crowds, because you shouldn't have to give up your freedom because of your injury, so I did the only thing I could to insure your safety without asking you to give up anything," I explained.

"You're wrong about that," she jumped in. "You may think your reasons were valid, but the moment you decided to assign someone to me without my permission, you crossed a line that said you didn't trust me."

"It's not about trust. It's about safety," I argued in return.

"Bullshit! It's about you always getting your way and thinking you were smart enough to sneak one in on me because I'm not aware of my surroundings enough to take care of myself. You didn't trust me to be able to handle myself," she yelled back, much louder than I'd ever heard her.

"You, I trust. It's the other idiots I don't know about," I countered.

"Then call it off," she said, dropping her voice back down to a normal volume.

"What?" I didn't understand what she meant.

In a strangely calm voice, she offered, "If you trust me, call off the shadow duty and trust that I'll let you know if I'm doing something that I feel uncertain about or that I'll contact you if I get into a situation that calls for help."

Damn, how did I respond to that? "If you call for help, it could take time to get someone to you. Having a guy assigned to be nearby means you never have to wait for back-up."

"True, but it also means I never have privacy or the ability to feel pride that I've handled a situation myself. I've lost my independence, not because I lost my hearing, but because I have an overbearing boyfriend," she spat out, going from calm to worked up once more. It was like riding a roller coaster, trying to keep up with her emotions.

"That's not what I intended," I tried assuring her.

"Intended or not, it's what you did," she said in a very defeated voice.

I decided at that moment, I'd take her anger anytime over the sound of her voice with no fight left in it.

I took a step closer, risking her lashing out at me, and relaxed when she lifted her hand and put it on my chest, just resting it over my heart. I placed my hand on top of hers, holding it to me. "I never meant to hurt you. I just couldn't stand the way your first trip out ended, and I swore I wouldn't let that happen to you again. I want to protect you, I always have, but admittedly, since you lost your hearing, that feeling is a lot more intense."

"Your mother told a story at dinner last weekend about you as a little boy. She said the neighborhood had a bully who used to follow you to school, and it worried her so much that she walked you to and from school every day," she said, bringing up one of the stories from my past I'd wished my mother hadn't shared.

"She did it every day, until Papi found out about it and forbid her from walking me anymore," I picked up the story.

"What happened the first day you walked to school without her?" she asked, as though she didn't know the answer to the question.

"The kid came up behind me, but Papi had taught me a few tricks, and I stood up to him," I recounted, still feeling the sense of pride I got whenever I thought about that altercation.

"Did you win?" she pushed.

"No, but he didn't, either," I told her. "I'd say it was a draw, but I put up enough of a challenge that he never tried it again."

"So when it was over, did you wish that your mother was still walking you to school, or were you glad to have a chance to keep walking by yourself?" she asked, making her point perfectly.

I nodded that I understood what she was doing, and then answered, "I was glad to be able to do it alone. As long as she walked with me, I was safe, but I knew it was only because I had her. But after I stood up for myself, I had the confidence of knowing I was safe because I was capable of standing up for myself."

"That's all I want," she said, moving a little closer so her arm wasn't stretched so far. "I want the ability to stand up for myself so I can develop that same sense of confidence. I know I may get knocked around a little at first, but I have to do this on my own in order to be able to look at myself in the mirror."

I hated losing, and it was clear from the look on her face that I had to admit defeat here. But when I looked at it from her point of view, I wanted to be able to give that to her. This was a chance for me to show her just how much I trusted and believed in her, so I had no choice. "I'll tell Tank he's back in the office with me tomorrow, and we'll put an end to the shadows effectively immediately."

She smiled at my words, but it didn't fully reach her eyes. The hurt was still there, and me admitting that she was right wasn't going to erase the pain like a magic pill. I needed to work a little harder to make this right.

"I'm sorry, Babe. I was focused on keeping you safe and didn't look any further than that."

I could swear her eyes softened as soon as the apology came out of my mouth. "I understand what you did, but I have to trust that you'll tell me if you're doing something that directly involves me from now on."

"Will you fight me on it if I tell you that I want to assign someone to shadow you in the future?" I asked, curious what she would say.

"Probably," she admitted honestly. "But I promise to listen to why you think it's necessary and look at it from your point of view, before dismissing it automatically."

I kissed her forehead, before pulling back to look at her to reply, "That's all I ask. I won't jump the bodyguard gun again without a strong reason, and I won't do it all without letting you know first, but I need to be able to trust that you won't try to lose them if the situations calls for having them there."

She nodded her agreement, and we stood there looking at each other in silence. I felt like the fact that neither of us were itching to pull away spoke volumes more than any further discussion on the topic could have, so I stayed there, looking at the woman I loved more than life itself.

I noticed the second her expression shifted to one of amusement and wondered what thought had just crossed her mind. "Did we just survive our first fight?" she asked.

I thought about it and couldn't remember ever raising my voice or losing my patience with her before, so it must have been our first real disagreement. "I guess we did."

"You didn't let me run," she stated in amazement.

I shook my head. "And you didn't let me shut down and hide."

"I didn't realize it was possible to fight to a resolution. In the past when I've yelled at someone, it's ended with them yelling back, and then a mandatory cooling off period before we can stand to see each other again," she informed me. This wasn't exactly news, as her fights with Joe were the stuff of legend in the 'Burg.

"I'm sorry," I repeated again, feeling the need to make amends for causing this whole thing in the first place.

"I understand why you did it; I really do. I've just never liked the idea of someone else making decisions for me. And the whole idea of having my every move being watched, when there is no security threat, is creepy. I know I overreacted, but it feels like there's already a lot I'm giving up, and the idea of having something like my privacy taken, too, just irritated me," she confessed in what I thought was an apology of sorts in return.

Then she smiled once more and said, "But if you're really sorry, I can think of some things you can do to make it up to me."

I raised an eyebrow, finding that every nerve ending in my body stood up and took notice when she offered that so provocatively. "I don't know," I played along. "I'm really, really sorry. Is there something you can think of monumental enough to help me work off all this guilt?"

I let go of her hand to touch her face, just as her hand tightened to grab a fistful of my t-shirt and pull me toward her. "I've got a few ideas," she told me, before kissing my neck near my ear and lowering her voice to a sexy level. "Grab some water and meet me in the bedroom. This is going to take a while, and we can't have you giving out from dehydration."

Then she released my shirt and stepped around me to walk to the bedroom, without once looking back to check that I was following her. I'd never seen her take control to that degree sexually, and my cock instantly stood up to salute this new side of her personality.

I grabbed two bottles of water so I'd have one to put on her night stand. This might be about my penance, but I wanted to be sure she didn't have any excuses to stop before I was guilt free. I hoped the adrenaline let down after fighting didn't drain her energy too quickly. I had a lot of sins in my past to work off, and I think I was going to be a big fan of absolution Stephanie-style.